BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has asked all collectors to design and decorate the anganwadi centres so as to project them as smart playschools for children. The ambience and internal management of anganwadi centres should be child- friendly. The walls of the centres should be properly white-washed and charts, pictures, cartoons and dolls should be hanged and painted to attract children. The anganwadi centres (AWCs) should ideally be located on primary school premises or adjacent to it. The centres, which do not have a building of its own, should be shifted to the nearest primary school building so that the same infrastructure can be used for pre-school children and they will be better oriented towards schools. Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik reviewed the activities of the AWCs through video-conferencing here on Saturday. The Chief Secretary also directed the collectors to see that there was a tube-well within 250 meters of the AWCs. The issues regarding decentralisation of feeding materials’ procurement, formation of district squads, proper functioning of scrutiny committees and mother committees, e-payment to joint account of AWC for procurement of feeding material, construction of new AWC buildings and updating of data on different pension schemes were reviewed. The district-level squads have already been constituted in all districts to supervise feeding programmes. The collectors were asked to ensure availability of good quality dals and eggs in the AWCs and strictly directed to monitor the quality and protein content of the materials. The district social welfare officers have been directed to complete online entry of all data relating to pension holders under various social security schemes. Around 16 lakh people have been included in different pension schemes. Out of total of 71,000 AWCs in the State, construction of buildings has been completed in 16,000 centres. The work is in progress in 2,663 more. Fresh sanction for new buildings for each district from Thirteenth Finance Commission (TFC) was conveyed to the collectors. The collectors have been directed to take up the works of all theses projects during the current year and complete it within the scheduled time. Secretary in the Women and Child Development Department Arati Ahuja and Social Welfare Director Sujata Kartikeyan were present.
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